Arizona Mayor Rejects Invitation Because It Was In ‘Spanish/Mexican’

A mayor in Arizona said he would not attend a meeting with mayors of bordering Mexican towns because the invitation was translated in "Spanish/Mexican"

It was a situation of comical ignorance—Huachuca City Mayor Ken Taylor firmly declined a meeting with the U.S.-Mexico Border Mayors Association due to a Spanish translation on the invitation.

According to Mic, Taylor emailed John Cook, the executive director of the association, to express his outrage over the fact that Spanish was used on an invitation involving Mexico.

"I will NOT attend a function that is sent to me in Spanish/Mexican," he wrote. “One nation means one language and I am insulted by the division caused by language."

The fact that Taylor believes “Mexican” is a language and is the mayor of a town that borders Mexico and the U.S. is both laughable and appalling—it demonstrates the thoroughly ignorant perspective many local GOP leaders possess and perpetuate.

The “division caused by language” is disgustingly similar to the rhetoric regularly spewed by Fox News, whose hosts claim that talking about issues of race is divisive and racist in itself.

Mic reports that Cook was more than reasonable—he emailed Taylor back, “explaining that the invitation's translation was meant to ensure mayors from both side of the border could read and understand it, and offered to remove him from the email list.”

Taylor responded with an anti-immigrant tirade, claiming the use of Spanish showed the U.S. was going “downhill,” sounding remarkably akin to Donald Trump.

Cook was upset and frustrated by Taylor’s response, acknowledging that, “The more I think about it, this is probably a big sentiment in parts of Arizona where people do not like people to speak Spanish in this country.”

Unfortunately, it is more than Arizona—this 2016 election has demonstrated there is a much larger portion of the U.S. that agrees with Taylor than we would like to believe.